Slow Down and Smell the Roses!

This week I am going to keep going with my favorite topic. Mastery. This is one of the hardest things to master. Hahaha. Did you see what I did there? You see, it is nearly impossible to master anything. It is about the journey. A journey that you need to put effort into and learn how to enjoy. For the purpose of this article we will apply mastery to your gym training. No matter what discipline you are training in. The gym is full of instant gratification and gravitating towards ones strengths. Too often I see this type of approach. Modern society has us running crazy. There is no time for anything. The norm has become don’t worry about it. I will get it done tomorrow. Mastery is something people think they can get done by putting in a little effort every once in a while. Here are three tips to help get you on the path to mastery.

1. Enjoy the process.

You have heard the saying, slow down and smell the roses, right?There is no rush.Don’t get yourself so caught up with your performance or just getting in a good sweat today that you let the details drift away.Performance comes when the basics are done very well.If you have not mastered the basics then your performance will always be subpar.Keep your head in the game as well.Be mindful.It is part of training.There is no point working hard if your form is not right. Take that extra second to correct yourself or ask for a coach’s eye.The things that you need the most work with will not just miraculously get better.That is the funny thing with human movement.If you are not able to move like you were built to, it is only a matter of time before things start to break down.This brings us to tip number 2.

2. You are only as good as your weakest link!

Weaknesses are a blessing.Could you imagine just waking up and being perfect at everything.Ok..enough about me.This article is about helping you.(Insert smile here). Kidding aside, I believe there is a large amount of the population that does just that.Unfortunately, it is just that, their imagination.The whole point of training is to improve on weaknesses.Don’t get caught up avoiding what you are not good at, just so you can feel better about yourself in that moment.Shift your focus.The big win for any day is improving your movement and understanding of movement.The most important workouts of the week are ones with your weaknesses in them.You should be excited to improve them.If you are hiding from your weaknesses stop and go back to my first tip.Enjoy the process.

3. Baby steps

This seems like the appropriate time to introduce a good thought from my friend Apollo Creed.“There is no tomorrow”.You see, for those that are on a path to mastery, tomorrow is to late.Five minutes of practice every day for the rest of your life will yield unimaginable results.Ten minutes and well, you get the idea.You can’t cram practice for mastery every once in a while.It needs to be every day.You should start your training by practicing and improving the movements for the day.Pay attention to how you feel.There is no rush.Don’t make practice about conditioning.Make it about perfection.

As you build these habits we can talk about how to finish off a training session.I will talk about that in my next article.I will be discussing the 10,000 hour rule of mastery.To wrap this up I will leave you with one last gem from another friend of mine.This comes from the great Nike.Just Do It!